Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald apologizes to Sean Payton for interview comments
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - SEPTEMBER 08: Head coach Sean Payton of the Denver Broncos and head coach Mike Macdonald of the Seattle Seahawks shake hands after the game at Lumen Field on September 08, 2024 in Seattle, Washington. The Seahawks defeated the B (Alika Jenner / Getty Images)
RENTON, Wash. - Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said he called Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton to apologize after a story he didn't intend to be public from a sit-down interview came out on Tuesday.
Macdonald shared a story on In-Depth with Graham Bensinger about Payton accusing them of cheating after their game in 2024 when the Broncos found out Seattle had scouted plays from their training camp. The plays were publicly available on Twitter from fans attending the practices, but Payton seemingly believed that there might be more to the situation.
The discussion happened with Macdonald seemingly not believing cameras and audio were recording, or that anything from that point would be used in the interview. The clip has seemingly been pulled from the full-length interview posted to YouTube by Bensinger's team, indicating it probably wasn't supposed to be included.
"It’s something that I didn’t intend for public use," Macdonald said. "Thought it was the most appropriate thing to reach out to Sean and apologize to him for having that end up be public, where it wasn’t meant to."
The backstory:
Macdonald did a wide-ranging interview on In-Depth with Graham Bensinger prior to the start of the regular season, touching on his path to become an NFL head coach, how he met his wife, Stephanie, and the Seahawks' win in Super Bowl LX in February. Bensinger's team pieced out portions of the interview over the last week before airing the full, nearly two-hour interview this weekend.
The full interview was published on YouTube on Tuesday, and included Macdonald's story about Payton. It has since been removed from the upload since the story picked up attention.
"Our first year, we play them our first game," Macdonald said. Fans will tape or post plays from training camp on Twitter. And so it's like public knowledge. We took like 100 plays from their training camp, and we're like scouting them.
"He got wind of it and he like lost it," Macdonald said. "It's middle of the season and we won the game. And we're like in the fight our first year, a lot of s--- going on it. And so he called John (Schneider) and he basically like threatened to come out publicly and do like a whole Patriot-like Spygate type of thing. And I'm sitting there like ‘oh my god, we didn’t cheat!' He thought it was like a Michigan thing where we had a plant and the whole thing and so we had to like counter with him and say like ‘if you come out on this, we’re going to sue you because it's not true.'"
The ‘Spygate’ reference is to when it was discovered that the New England Patriots under head coach Bill Belichick were videotaping the signals of opposing team coaches, particularly the New York Jets, in 2007. Studying opposing team's signals is not inherently illegal, but the means by which the Patriots were doing so was.
Meanwhile, the ‘Michigan’ reference is to former University of Michigan coach Connor Stallions, who videotaped the signals of opposing coaches by purchasing tickets to games of future opponents and filming them from the stands. Macdonald served as the Michigan defensive coordinator for one season in 2021, which could certainly have fueled Payton's skepticism about Seattle's actions.
"He backed down, but he was like killing John, our GM, and John was telling me like ‘dude, did you?’ and I was like ‘No! What are you crazy? That's not how we do business,'" Macdonald said. "Anyway, so the season ends and he let it go, but it was like the ‘Cold War.’ ‘I’m going to hit the button. I'm going to hit the button.' Then we're like ‘we’re going to hit the button.' So none of us hit the button."
Macdonald said he and Payton spoke on Tuesday night as he apologized for the story becoming public domain.
"It’s a lesson learned," Macdonald said. "I have to be better in that moment for understanding like, ‘I’m responsible for what I say, no matter the circumstance.’ Whether you’re mic’d up, whether you’re not. Whether you have a certain type of understanding. I fell short in that moment, so it stings for me, but it’s something that I’m going to learn from. It’s a good example that we have to take responsibility for the things we say.
"Sean was great. I’ll say, I respect the heck out of him and his program, always have. He’s a phenomenal football coach. It’s been great to get to know him at the owner’s meeting the last couple of years. He was awesome. We’re both looking forward to moving forward from it, but I appreciate how he handled it."
Dig deeper:
Payton spoke to reporters in Denver on Wednesday and seemed perfectly happy with how Macdonald and said he had no qualms with the Seahawks.
"He and I are good," Payton said of Macdonald. "Lord knows I've been in his position where you're talking about something... The story is three years ago. I didn't know Mike at that time, really, but I know (John Schneider) really well. I'm sure my initial call to John wasn't pleasant, but I would say this. In talking with them, it allowed us to figure out how to handle our training camp relative to videos. I don't think anything was intentional by fans, but at first you're thinking how? And then we did some research online of what was available and that's kind of how we changed our policy.
"I've known John for 20 years so it was an easy call to him."
Payton at first said he didn't know where Seattle's ability to see their training camp plays was coming from, but the Broncos then realized how much had made it onto the internet.
"I called shooting before I started looking," Payton said with a laugh. "… It was eye-opening relative to just ‘alright, we have to be better in this area.’"
"We're pulling for them except for one game. They're playing our division. They're in the NFC. The conversation last night was good. I have a ton of respect for him and that's it."
Featured
Mike Macdonald says Sean Payton accused Seattle Seahawks of cheating behind scenes after 2024 contest
Broncos head coach Sean Payton threatened to accuse Mike Macdonald and the Seahawks of cheating after learning that Seattle had scouted around 100 plays from Denver's training camp publicly available online.
The Source: Information in this story comes from FOX 13 Seattle reporting.
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